Benny Morris

Benny Morris was born in 1948 in Ein HaHoresh

Morris was born on 8 December 1948 in kibbutz Ein HaHoresh to Jewish immigrants from the United Kingdom. His father Ya'akov was a diplomat, historian and poet, and his mother Sadie was a journalist. The family moved to Jerusalem, and he spent two long periods in New York during his father's foreign service posts.

He served as an infantryman, including in the Paratroopers, and was wounded at the Suez Canal in 1969. He earned a first degree at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and a doctorate from the University of Cambridge in 1977. His thesis dealt with British and German relations in the 1930s.

Morris then worked as a reporter for The Jerusalem Post until 1991. In the 1980s he studied Israeli archives and found evidence of expulsions of Palestinians in 1948. His book The Birth of the Palestinian Refugee Problem appeared in 1988 and drew wide criticism in Israel.

For years no Israeli university would hire him. President Ezer Weizman helped him obtain a post at Ben-Gurion University of the Negev in 1997. He later served as a visiting professor at Georgetown University starting in 2015.

Scholars describe a shift in his views around 2000, during the Second Intifada. In a 2004 Haaretz interview he said the 1948 expulsions were not war crimes, which caused controversy. He lives in Srigim and is married with three children.